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Three constituents of ruling Left Front in West Bengal meet

`All decisions should have the prior concurrence of Left Front partners'

Mamata welcomes stand taken by the three parties

Kolkata: Leaders of three major constituents of the ruling Left Front in West Bengal the Revolutionary Socialist Party, the All India Forward Bloc and the Communist Party of India met here on Friday to "develop a strategy to put collective pressure on the State Government" to ensure greater transparency in its decision-making.

They have been critical of the police firing at Nandigram in the State's Purbo Mednipur district on Wednesday as well as the decision to send security forces there without them being informed about it.

The meeting was held on the eve of the resumption of discussions between the Left Front leaders on the police firing.

General secretary of the state committee of the All India Forward Bloc, Ashok Ghosh, told The Hindu that his party would "in no way accept" a situation where the State Government continued to take decisions without informing the other constituents of the Left Front.

"All decisions should have the prior concurrence of Left Front partners. If the present situation is allowed to continue then we might have to reconsider being part of the government," he said, adding that the Left Front would continue to exist.

"The matter was not discussed even in the State cabinet and the ministerial core committee," he regretted.

State Secretary of the CPI, Manjukumar Majumdar, who regretted the police firing, admitted that there "was a crisis within the Left Front" which could be resolved only if decisions taken by the government were first discussed within the Front.

"We are for strengthening the Left Front in West Bengal but do not find any reason why decisions should be taken unilaterally without all the constituents being taken into confidence. Such a situation cannot be accepted," he said.

Senior leader of the RSP, Manoj Bhattacharjee, said that his party would "even be forced to leave the Government but not the Left Front" if it continued to be ignored in decision-making as had been the case regarding the sending of the police to Nandigram.

Trinamool Congress leader, Mamata Banerjee, welcomed the stand taken by the leadership of the three parties on the police firing, adding that "We cannot ask them to leave the Left Front as that was their affair."